Michael Manning - The Archmage unbound

Then I realized what had gotten my attention, there was a fine aura of power rippling in the air around his body, something similar to my own shield but far subtler. My shield was bright and shimmering when viewed with my mage-sight but this was a dim shadowy aura, almost undetectable. He kept his power close to his skin and it was woven so delicately it was hard to understand what purpose it might serve, though it was clearly not meant to be used as a protective shield.

At last my curiosity got the better of me and I turned to look upward at him. My eyes immediately found the window he was standing at, but there was no one there. That was in direct opposition to the fact that my mage-sight could still see him standing there quite clearly, looking down at me. I squinted as my eyes tried harder to see the person I knew had to be there. As I did I sensed (but didn’t see) the stranger’s eyebrows lifting in surprise, as he realized I knew he was there.

I started heading for the door that would lead me inside. “Wait there! I need to talk to you!” I shouted upward as I moved. I wasn’t entirely sure why I thought the man might listen to me but it couldn’t hurt. I didn’t really fancy having to chase him around. Visible or not I was certain he couldn’t escape me now that I had taken notice of him.

That proved to be hubris on my part. As I ran across the yard he began to fade. My last impression was of him closing his eyes before he simply wasn’t there anymore. I stopped dead still. That’s not possible… is it? I wondered. I opened my mind to its fullest and scanned the area carefully. I made doubly sure there were no ‘empty’ spaces that might indicate the presence of a shiggreth either. I found nothing.

As far as I could tell, the stranger had simply faded out of existence. He had gone from merely invisible to ‘maybe I just imagined it’ in the span of just a few seconds. Still I had enough confidence these days in my senses not to doubt them. He had been there, which left me with some uncomfortable possibilities. “He was there, but he was not visible… not to the naked eye,” I mused aloud. “And when he realized I was aware of him he either transported himself away or managed to hide himself from my mage-sight as well as my normal sight.”

I didn’t think he had transported himself. I would have felt something and I doubted he had a circle prepared there in the middle of the hallway in my own castle. I resolved to check that immediately and I continued my journey inside so that I could examine the place where I had seen him.

A minute later I was standing where he had been. There was no circle. Searching the corridor and nearby rooms I didn’t find any nearby either. Yet he had vanished. My recent study of illusions had made me quite aware of some of the possibilities magic held with regards to fooling the eyes but I knew of no way to make a someone completely undetectable to normal vision. Setting that aside I couldn’t imagine how he could hide from my mage-sight, even the shiggreth left an empty place that could be sensed if I paid enough attention.

So is he still here, or not? The thought set the space between my shoulder blades to itching. I double checked my shield and began walking briskly toward the training yard. As soon as I spotted my burly friend I shouted, “Dorian!” Surprised he looked up and after he spotted me he gave the men a few more instructions before walking to meet me.

“You look worried,” he said. My friend had a gift for understatement.

“There’s an intruder inside the castle,” I told him without preamble.

“What?!”

I began explaining what had happened, which took longer than I had expected. Dorian was full of questions and my story was less than clear to him since he didn’t really understand magic in the slightest. Finally he summed up the story for me, “So you don’t know if there’s someone here now, or if they’ve gone… and it’s possible you were just imagining things, since you never actually saw them with your eyes.”

“That sums it up, except for the imagining part. There was someone there and he was using magic of some sort,” I replied. “What do you think we should do?”

Dorian gave me a look that spoke volumes… his mouth gaped and his eyes were wide. “A rogue wizard is loose in the castle and you’re asking me? If you can’t find him I don’t have a clue what to…” His eyes got wider for a moment. “Go find Penny! Stay with her till I find you.”

“Wait,” I said in confusion. “Why Penny?”

“Just make sure she’s safe! I’ll take care of the rest!” Dorian shouted back. He was already heading toward the training field and before I got to the stairs I could hear him yelling instructions to the men at arms there. I ran in the opposite direction and cursed myself for not thinking of Penny. It was a sign of my own growing vanity. I had assumed that whatever risk the intruder posed must be directed at me. As I ran I found her with my mind… she was never too far from my thoughts so I located her easily.

Inside the keep I took the stairs two at a time and as I reached the floor we lived on I started yelling her name. She was in the nursery, probably decorating again, or ‘nesting’ as she called it. She was alone as far as I could tell, and in fact the only other person was a maid cleaning rooms at the opposite end of the hall. She looked curiously out of the room as I ran past but I paid no heed to her questioning.

I burst through the door to our rooms without slowing down and nearly knocked Penny to the floor, she had been running the other way. “What the hell?” she exclaimed, in her hand she held a sheathed sword.

“Damn, you almost skewered me with that thing!” I said, ignoring the fact that my shield would probably have protected me. Then again, I did enchant her blade… it might well cut through my shield, I thought, remembering my fight with Devon Tremont.

She arched an eyebrow at me. “That’s why I don’t take it out of the scabbard until I see someone worth cutting, genius,” she replied tartly, waving it in front of me.

I couldn’t help but smile inwardly. My girl definitely has a mouth on her. Can’t help but love her, I thought to myself. I took her hand and with a word and a thought I built a shield around both of us. My breath was still coming heavily after my sprint up the stairs.

“Are you planning to share the details with me?” she asked.

Drawing another deep breath I replied, “I found someone in the castle, watching me. Dorian suggested I find you first.” I was still panting and even I will admit it wasn’t the most complete answer I have ever given.

“So you need me to protect you from your secret admirer?” she asked.

Laughing made it harder to catch my breath but I was almost fully recovered by then anyway. “Maybe,” I said with a grin. “The intruder was using magic of some sort, and he was able to hide himself from me. I think Dorian thought you might be a target so he suggested I find you first.”

Penny patted her softly rounded stomach, “I’m definitely a good target and getting easier to hit by the day.”

I should have known she’d bring that up. Women never seemed to miss an opportunity to bring attention to their growing waistlines, even though they complained about it. “You aren’t that big yet,” I said, another half-truth on my part, but all part of a husband’s duty. “You do bring up a good point though, should you really be picking up steel and fighting unknown foes in your condition?”

“Would you rather I lay down and wait to die if someone attacked me?”

Alright, I had to admit… looking at it from that perspective she made a lot of sense. “Point taken,” I said.

“No… no point taken… that’s the point,” she replied.